


my blood coated tongue

by Princex_N



Series: i'll bend and break [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Biting, Body-focused repetitive behavior, Brainweird, Compulsions, Dermatophagia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Holding Hands, Self-Harm, fuck i don't know how to tag this, that feeling when you find a sense of solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bokuto's mouth fills with the taste of blood and someone's hand smacks his away from his face. </p><p>"Stop biting, Bokuto-san." Akaashi says, in that soft monotone. </p><hr/><p>a sort of companion fic to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5836810">let me fucking die</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	my blood coated tongue

Bokuto is not the kind of person who cares about things like "order", but sometimes there are things that he just can't let go.

As he runs his tongue over his lips and feels the uneven skin there, as he runs his tongue over the inside of his cheeks and feels the uneven skin that's partially detached there, he decides that there are some things that he  _really_ can't let go. 

There's a piece of skin, near the back of his mouth, and he can  _feel_ it and he knows how  _easy_ it would be to pull it off and he  _needs_ to pull it off, but he  _can't fucking reach it_. 

He raises a hand to his face and pushes on his cheek to try and make it easier for his teeth to grab onto it, but it's not really working. He can just barely get it, only enough to feel it between his teeth and hear the soft noise of his teeth biting through it, and then he loses his grip, and the skin is still there, barely hanging on. 

He resists the urge to groan in frustration, and tries again, and again and again and  _again_ , and each time he bites a piece of skin and it's the wrong one, each time he bites a little bit deeper but it's  _still fucking there_ , and...

Bokuto's mouth fills with the taste of blood and someone's hand smacks his away from his face. 

"Stop biting, Bokuto-san." Akaashi says, in that soft monotone. 

Bokuto grimaces, forces his teeth apart, mumbles an apology, and runs his tongue over the inside of his mouth again. 

There are more pieces of skin now, millimeters long, hanging off and hanging on, at least three of them, instead of the single one that was there before. 

He feels like he could cry from frustration. 

Akaashi is still looking at him, and so Bokuto doesn't start to bite again. Instead he runs his tongue over the wounds and waits for the metallic taste in his mouth to fade.

The moment he sees Akaashi look away, he tries again. The bus goes over a bump in the road and Bokuto's teeth sink in deeper than he had intended them to, he can't stop the small noise of pain that he makes as blood fills his mouth all over again. There's more of it this time. 

The look that Akaashi gives him is a mix of worry and disappointment, and Bokuto looks away. He leans his head against the bus window and grinds his teeth against each other so hard that it hurts, he keeps his tongue where it belongs, caged in by his aching teeth, and doesn't let it find its way to the inside of his cheeks. He tries not to focus on how the uneven skin of his lips brush and catch against each other. 

The taste of blood lingers in his mouth.

-

By the time they reach the camp, Bokuto still hasn't managed to get the skin, and there's blood smeared around his mouth because he'd started to bite his lips instead. Akaashi looks frustrated as he looks for something to wipe it off with, but Bokuto just licks it away and grins easily. 

Then Akaashi gently informs him that there's blood on his teeth, and Bokuto closes his mouth hurriedly, trying to stuff down the embarrassment. 

He can't remember when this thing started, but he's been doing it for years and doesn't feel like he'll be able to stop any time soon. 

That doesn't mean it's not a little embarrassing. 

Once he's off the bus, he tries to distract himself by talking to the people he hasn't seen in a while, but every time there's a lull in the conversation, Bokuto doesn't realize that he's been biting himself until he hears his teeth piercing the tissue, ripping it, and peeling it off. 

He swallows the pieces and hopes that no one notices. 

-

Practice is good because it means that he can't bite himself. He's occupied with the game, he doesn't have time to let his tongue wander and find places to bite, so he doesn't. 

It's good, and so he doesn't ever really want to stop practicing. 

Plus, volleyball is  _fun_ and so it's really a win-win situation. 

The only hard part is trying to find people willing to practice with him. 

Luckily, Akaashi seems to understand and Kuroo is just about always willing to keep playing, so there's usually someone. 

Akaashi is in the bathroom, so it's just him and Kuroo, and Bokuto doesn't mind, even though it's better when Akaashi is there. 

Bokuto spikes the ball and Kuroo blocks it, and the disappointment that Bokuto feels is shoved aside when he sees Kuroo flinch, harder than he usually does. Bokuto doesn't say anything, but when Kuroo tosses him the ball back, there's a smear of blood on it that definitely wasn't there before. 

"Hey, are you bleeding?" Bokuto asks, flipping the ball around to show Kuroo while wondering if it's possible that his spike is strong enough to break skin now. 

Kuroo's hands curl into fists and he pulls them slightly toward his chest. "Nope." he says, and his voice is easy, his grin as lazy as always, but Bokuto doesn't buy it for a second. 

"Yes you are, let me see." Bokuto argues, ducking under the net and dropping the ball to reach out for Kuroo's hands. Your hands are important when you play volleyball, ignoring injuries means that they won't get better, and that's bad for your playing. 

But Kuroo steps back, trying to hide his hands, face a weird cross between its usual relaxed and a vague sort of panic.

"I'm fine." Kuroo reasserts, but Bokuto doesn't take no for an answer, and there's a brief struggle while Bokuto tries to get a good look at Kuroo's hands and Kuroo tries to keep them hidden. 

But Bokuto wins, grabbing one of Kuroo's wrists and looking it over, slowly taking in the bleeding, mangled, peeling mess of Kuroo's fingers. The wounds look almost familiar. They look like bite marks. Kuroo pulls his arm away, and Bokuto lets him, mind startlingly blank as he searches desperately for something to say.

The silence goes on for too long, and Kuroo has his hands tucked under his arms, something like a snarl on his face. "What?" he snaps, challenging even though he looks like he's panicking. Bokuto shakes his head, and Kuroo scoffs, "What, you think it's gross?" 

"No." Bokuto hurries to say, because it's not like  _he_ can talk, but Kuroo doesn't look convinced. He's opening his mouth to say something else, when Bokuto shakes his head firmly, lurching closer a little unsteadily, "No really, look." 

Then he hesitates, because he wasn't really intending to show anyone and he's never shown anyone before, but he made Kuroo show him, so he basically owes it to him right? Bokuto grimaces, but steels himself and opens his mouth. Kuroo leans backwards, clearly confused, but Bokuto just hooks a couple of fingers in the corner of his mouth and pulls back, showing off the inside of his lower lip and cheek.

He knows full well what it looks like. Every so often, after a particularly bad day, he looks in the mirror himself, to survey the damage that's he's managed to do to himself. It's nothing pretty, angry red open wounds and gouges, small patches of stubborn skin that refuse to come off hang in tiny white sheets. It's, to put it simply, gross, and Bokuto knows it. 

Kuroo leans in, surveying the damage with the same interested horror that Bokuto had felt when looking at Kuroo's hands moments before.

"You too, huh?" Kuroo says, voice uncharacteristically soft.

Bokuto wonders if he can close his mouth now. He moves his fingers anyway, "Just can't seem to stop." He says, grinning with a levity he doesn't quite feel. 

Kuroo snorts, "Yeah? Me either."

Akaashi wanders back in, and takes in the scene before him. A small concerned crease appears between his eyebrows. "What's going on?" He asks, eyes casting around the room like he's looking for something that's been broken. 

Kuroo looks a little flustered, but Bokuto just laughs, bounding back to the other side of the net. "We were just waiting for you to come back, you take too long, Akaashi." Bokuto whines, he bites at a piece of loose skin absently, and rips it off as he grins. 

Akaashi taps his mouth, and Bokuto immediately licks his tongue over his teeth, tasting metal once again. 

He flashes a smaller, thankful grin at Akaashi and gets in position to get back to practice. Wonders vaguely if it'll be possible for him to ever get through a day without tasting blood in his mouth, wonders when the last day he didn't taste blood was, and can't come up with an answer for either. 

-

Eating dinner is goddamn painful. 

With every bite he takes, his mouth  _burns_ and he has to swallow noises of pain along with water to try and wash the spices out of the wounds that line the interior of his mouth. 

Akaashi keeps giving him a look that clearly expresses that Bokuto wouldn't have to deal with this if he would just stop biting himself, but it's not that simple. Meanwhile, Kuroo seems to be having the same problem, shaking his hands with a frantically pained urgency after every time he grabs something. 

They catch each other's eyes, and Bokuto can't stop himself from bursting into laughter. 

Kuroo doesn't seem to find the situation as amusing as he does, but after a moment passes, Bokuto catches him trying to hide a grin. 

-

Later, they're sitting next to each other, not really talking, just sitting, and Bokuto can't help but let out a groan of frustration.

"Do you ever  _need_ to bite, but you can't find anything to get a grip on?" 

Kuroo looks at him out of the corner of his eyes, and Bokuto ignores the stare in favor of trying to shove skin between his teeth in an attempt to find something to bite through. He doesn't know why he has to do it, but he  _has_ to, and it's frustrating when he can't. 

"Yeah," Kuroo says eventually, raising one of his hands to look at them. "But my hands have more space than your mouth does." 

Then he raises his hand to his mouth and rips off a piece of skin from his thumb, as if to demonstrate. 

Bokuto pulls his own hand away from his cheek, and looks at it, considering. 

Kuroo grabs it before he can make a decision and says, "You shouldn't start." 

Bokuto moves his hand to link their fingers together, and then looks up at Kuroo's face hesitantly. "This doesn't hurt you, right?" Bokuto doesn't know how far down the damage goes, and doesn't want to accidentally aggravate any wounds. 

Kuroo looks surprised, but shakes his head, "No, it's good."

Bokuto squeezes their hands together. "It's good to know I'm not the only one." he says softly, trying to ignore the blush he's pretty sure is spreading over his cheeks.

Kuroo sighs, "Yeah."  

**Author's Note:**

> i've been biting/chewing my mouth/hands since i was a kid and i found out it was a [Thing](http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/d/dermatophagia/intro.htm) today, so i wrote a fic about it (also these descriptions are mine and based off myself, i rly hope that no one is like offended/put off by them. sorry if you were).  
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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